


Kyouhaku Sayaka And The Tiny Small Rock That Had Ended Up In Her Hair

by Benfrosh



Category: Original Work
Genre: Anxiety, Body Horror, Gen, Self Harm, i squicked myself out thinking about it while writing it, kinda honestly violent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-11
Updated: 2016-07-11
Packaged: 2018-07-23 01:40:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7461606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Benfrosh/pseuds/Benfrosh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One day, Kyouhaku Sayaka noticed what appeared to be a rock in her hair.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kyouhaku Sayaka And The Tiny Small Rock That Had Ended Up In Her Hair

One day, Kyouhaku Sayaka noticed what appeared to be a rock in her hair. This was quite the distressing experience for her, as earlier that day there had been no such rock, and indeed she hadn't felt it at all before noticing it in the bathroom mirror. Nonetheless, there it was, hanging on the ends of her hair, resting on her shoulder. It was a thin rock, shaped like a small stalactite, glimmering pink and red in spots showing crystals underneath. And despite all logic and reason, there it was in Sayaka's hair, and she couldn't take her eyes off it.

Sayaka gave it a gentle tug, hoping it would just fall out, to no avail - it seemed to be firmly and persistently attached. She pulled harder, only stopping when she felt as if she'd rip her hair out by the roots. She had never heard of anyone getting a rock stuck in their hair before, much less one that had seemed to grow around the strands. She hoped that maybe she was just imagining things - school had been very stressful recently, and her sleep schedule had been ruined by late nights studying, and she was always worrying, and... yes, she concluded. She was just freaking out about nothing. It was probably caught in a tangle, and she was just failing to get it out due to her worry. She could just wait until she got home. Yes. Everything was going to be fine.

But everything was not fine. As Sayaka went about her day, she felt the stares of her classmates. Everyone saw it. She could feel her friends judging her, gossiping amongst each other about why she had a strange rock in her hair, and why wouldn't she take it out? Every time she raised her hand in class, she saw the teacher's face contort in shock and then pity when they saw the rock in her hair. As she walked down the halls, she felt people stepping to the side to avoid her, to not have to look at her. Why? Could they all see it? What had she done wrong? It was just a rock. Isn't that perfectly normal? Doesn't this happen to other people? Had she committed a sin by not getting rid of it as soon as possible? Was she an idiot for not dealing with it? Did they all know better than her?

By the time she had gotten home, Sayaka was in tears. The damn rock was still there, bouncing in her hair as she had run the whole way back. Without even saying hello to her parents as she walked in the door, she threw off her shoes and ran up the stairs to the bathroom. Inside one of the drawers, she retrieved her favorite pair of scissors. She held up her hair, and:

Snip. Snip.

The rock fell to the floor with a clatter, along with a few strands of hair. Sayaka let out a sigh of relief. With the rock gone, all the stress of the day seemed to melt with it. She picked up the rock, threw it away in the bathroom trash, and went downstairs for dinner.

\---

The next day, the rock was back.

Sayaka stared in the mirror, hoping once more she was imagining things. Despite her fervent hopes and wishes, though, it refused to go away, persistent in its existence. This time it was on her left instead of her right, so she knew it wasn't somehow the same rock. Maybe she had missed it? No - she was so aware of the other one, and it was so heavy on her mind. A second one should have been just as obvious. Furthermore, this one seemed to sparkle just the tiniest bit more than the last, and thus should have been a bit more obvious. Sayaka paused and thought about going through the day once more, with the stares and jeers of her peers once more. She couldn't face it again. She left the bathroom and ran straight home.

Her mother and father weren't back yet, so she ran once more to the bathroom, once more pulled out the scissors, and once more:

Snip. Snip.

The rock fell to the ground again, and she threw it away once more. She debated going back to school, but after two of these showed up from nowhere... she decided to stay home and rest and play sick if need be. She was going to figure out what was causing it. She went to bed and tried to sleep to deal with the anxiety she had building up.

\---

The next morning, there were two.

When her parents had come home, they were obviously worried about why their honor roll daughter, perfectly studious and perfectly dutiful, had come home sick unannounced and with no fever. She tried her best to assuage their worries, and in the end they had no choice but to trust her. Why would she lie, after all? She had never before. So Sayaka had rested, and hoped that the rock problem would go away. (At least her parents had never seemed to notice.)

Sayaka felt the panic building up within her. The two rocks, hanging from her hair like ugly, brutish pendants, took up all her mindspace. For all she wanted to pull her eyes away, to focus on anything else (like her college applications, like her future job prospects, like how everyone at school was going to judge her for running away from her problems), but she couldn't. 

As she stared, Sayaka finally thought of an idea. If the problem was in her hair, she should just get rid of it. She opened a drawer, took out a razor, and started shaving off her hair, bit by bit. As it fell to the ground in clumps, she could hear the smack! smack! of the two rocks hitting the ground. And she took the whole mess, hair and rocks, and threw it in the trash, and she could feel her stress behind.

At school, however, she still felt the glares of her teachers, the scorn of her classmates, the judgment all around. Why were people whispering as they passed her in the hallways? Why were her teachers looking at her in shock still? Had she missed one? Was there some strand of hair that she had missed, now a stalactite hanging from her bald head? She found herself in the same familiar bathroom once more, hands gripping the sink in panic, as she glared at herself in the mirror, looking for something, any imperfection that could explain it.

It wasn't until she looked down that she saw it. Her fingernail on her left index finger had turned into a rock, with sparkling crystals poking out. Of course! How could she have missed it? She kicked herself for her foolishness, exposing herself like that when she was still flawed. 

Well, this would be easy enough to fix at least. She knew that the shop club was open, and no one would be in there currently. She carefully ran across campus, while no one could look at her, and snuck into the shop room. Inside, she quickly found what she was looking for - a hammer. She carefully placed her hand on a nearby table, and tapped at the rock that had replaced her nail, slowly pushing it out. And out it fell, leaving behind fresh skin where her nail had been, and a rock on the table. She held up her left hand to look at it and revel in having beaten the problem.

And she saw that her thumbnail had turned into a rock. In a rush, she threw her hand down and mashed it with a hammer. Pound, pound, pound - and the rock fell out. 

And her middle finger nail had turned into a rock. Slam, slam, slam - another one gone. Slowly she was starting to lose feeling in her hand, which helped her work through the pain that was building up in her fingers.

Her ring finger was next. And then her pinky, before she could react. It was spreading, faster than she could deal with it. She looked around the room in a rush, and found - a handsaw. Perfect. She took it and, with the careful, perfect precision built up over years of music lessons, sawed through her wrist, removing the whole damned hand and with it her worries. At last, she was free. She held up her stump to examine it, finally free from flaws.

And in the end, where she should have seen blood and bone, she saw only a layer of rock and blood red crystals. 

It was too late. It was inside of her. She had to be more aggressive. She put her arm down on the table, and sawed through it at the elbow. And once more, it was rock instead of blood. She nearly panicked, before her perfect, intelligent, trained from birth to be perfectly studious and perfectly dutiful mind helped her reach the only conclusion that there was to be reached. If she was to save her beautiful mind, and preserve her perfect reputation, she just had to get rid of her infected body totally. 

Thus did Kyouhaku Sayaka carefully, calmly, and dutifully saw off her head, cleanly separating it from her body.


End file.
